“Come on, you can’t just leave it at that.”
“It’s too long a story for right now, and even I don’t know all of it. I promise, when we have a free moment, you can pick my brain about every last myth you want.”
I sighed, but he wasn’t wrong. Story time wasn’t a priority.
“She was right, though. You do look like a treat.” He slid his fingers along my spine, his words low and smooth and tempting. Somehow, after our talk, that word didn’t freak me out like it probably should have.
I’d gone with a dress that was more flowy than the last. It was still black and red—somehow those felt like they fit—and it dipped low in the chest, then ran down from that point to drift around my ankles. I’d skipped heels—my feet hurt from dealing with them—and had gone with flats.
“How did last night go?” I asked to distract myself.
“Fine.”
“Where is everyone else?”
“Word spread about our little team, so there are people here. Colter showed up, Fredrick is over there, and someone from the mage’s guild, I think. I’m sure they’d rather be here with you, but business calls.” He peered to the side, then sighed. “And it’s my turn to go on and make nice, as well. I just wanted to save you from Lilith.” He leaned in and pressed a quick kiss before backing away. “Be careful, shadow-girl. People are taking notice of you.”
With that, he left, and I had to admit…he might have been correct. When I peered around the room, eyes would shift away from me and back to their conversation, as if whoever they were talking to was just there as cover.
After a lifetime of no one really seeing me, I felt far too on display.
As I moved through the room, I spotted Kase first. Sure enough, he stood beside Colter, and again I struggled to believe he was older than the coven leader. Kase was many things, but he wasn’t the monster that Colter was. Why not? What made Kase different?
It didn’t matter at the moment since there was no way I was going anywhere near Colter. The last time I’d had to see him, he’d threatened me, and sure, I’d been threatened a lot since then, but there was something special about a person’s first one that made me want to stay the hell away from them.
Troy was beside Fredrick, though Sarah was nowhere around. Then again, who really wanted to bring their mate to hell?
No one ever takes me anywhere nice.
I was going to avoid them as well, but Troy turned to lock eyes with me, giving me no real out.
Instead, I trudged over, not bothering to look excited.
“Ms. Harlin,” Fredrick said, a smile to his lips that looked honest, but I couldn’t figure out why.
He’d also threatened me, though in a much nicer way than Colter, into doing a job for him.
A job I didn’t really do all that well.
“Fredrick.”
Troy wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against his side, a clear power play to remind Fredrick that I wasn’t just anyone. Wolves and their games…
“I have to say, when I heard about this, I hardly believed it. That little human here in hell? That was the sort of thing I couldn’t miss.”
I tried to stick my hands into my pockets before remembering that dresses didn’t have pockets. “The world is a crazy place.”
“So it seems. I never attend these things—I find hell a depressing place—but this was worth the travel. Not to forget that Troy in the games is a surprise as well. I would ask how that happened,” Fredrick’s gaze dropped to where Troy’s are was wrapped around me, “But I don’t think I need to.”
It took me a moment to realize why I disliked him so much.
Troy.
It was the tension Troy had, the way he wanted me nowhere near anything pack.
“Have there been any more cases of werewolves going crazy?” I asked.
Fredrick’s smile fell. “Yes, a few. I’ve stopped putting them down and converted an old storage area we had into holding cells. Now that I know it isn’t some sort of infection, I am hoping we can fix it.”
I frowned. “How do you even know what happened? It wasn’t like we had time to leave a note.”
Fredrick turned his gaze from me Troy, like a question, as if he wasn’t sure Troy wanted him to answer.
The gesture annoyed me.
Thankfully, Troy shrugged, a safe response.
“The mage with you enabled communication between Troy and me. We’ve spoken a few times since you arrived there.”
“No one ever thinks to tell me about this stuff, do they? Maybe I had people to call.”
Troy lifted an eyebrow, his polite way of calling me out for the blatant lie.
Everyone I cared about or spoke to was here, in hell, other than Gran who I was pretty sure could have talked to me whenever she wanted.
“Shut up,” I muttered before elbowing Troy.
He pressed a kiss to my head and released me. “Go on. I have a few things to discuss with Fredrick before the second round starts.”
I pressed my lips into an unhappy line at the reminder of the competition, of the dangers, that we weren’t just at some party.
Still, I did as he said, spotting Grant. He wasn’t talking with someone I recognized, but given how human they looked, I had to guess mages.
Grant spotted me before I approached, but he didn’t reach out, not like Hunter and Troy had.
Because of that, I didn’t reach for him, either, letting him set the tone.
“Ava,” he said, voice friendly but careful. “This is Jameson Cleric and his apprentice, Victoria Brown.” Grant gestured toward me. “This is Ava Harlin.”
Jameson, a man who appeared to be in his forties with a pair of round glasses, stared at me with no attempt to hide his displeasure. “I’ve heard your name a lot in recent weeks.”
“Well, that’s vague and mildly threatening,” I said.
His eyebrow lifted, as if he hadn’t expected my
